Profound Bindness

Psalm 94:8-11                           2 Samuel 20:14-22                         John 11:45-54

Profound Blindness

Have you ever discovered, right in the middle of a debate or a discussion or an argument, that you were wrong and yet you still chose to continue to defend your position? I'm ashamed to admit that I have done this in the past…more so when I was younger than now…but I still remember the day when I decided to make a concerted effort to stop doing that. To rather admit that I was wrong as soon as possible and apologise because I found that the longer you wait to concede the more difficult and painful it becomes for all concerned. 

But have you ever wondered why people do this? I’m sure you have also been on the other end of such a discussion or perhaps you have been an exasperated witness. It is mind-boggling how people can still uphold their opinions when all logic is heaped up against them. Or worse when they base what they believe on how they feel! We all know that feelings can change with the weather or with a bad bit of steak! But besides that, how on earth can you argue with, “Yes, I know that is what the Scriptures say, but I feel, blah, blah, blah”? It’s enough to tear your hair out. Such people simply will not hear because they are not listening. Often such deliberations end in anger and things are said and done that may (or may not) be regretted later.

Now, last week we examined the possible reasons why Jesus allowed his dear friends to suffer such prolonged anguish and grief when he basically could have healed Lazarus even from a distance. The resurrection of a four-day-old, rotting corpse was an indisputable sign that Jesus was more than a good man, a virtuous teacher, or a mighty prophet. 

Interestingly, just as an aside, some Jewish Rabbis believe that the soul of the deceased remains present for a while after death – some say until the burial or a few days after the burial (see Shabbat 152b). The soul is even believed to mourn over its discarded and decomposing body, at times even hanging around for a while because it feels homeless. Now you know where ghost stories come from! 

But, as far as I know, no one ever contemplated the possibility of a soul returning to the body once the process of decay had set in because the body was no longer habitable. “According to Dr. Arpad A. Vass, a Senior Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee in Forensic Anthropology, human decomposition begins around four minutes after a person dies and follows four stages: autolysis (or self-digestion) , bloat, active decay, and skeletonization.” 

After four days, given the climate of that region, Lazarus would have been well on his way to stage three of this process which explains Martha’s horrified reaction to Jesus’ command to remove the heavy stone covering from the mouth of the cave or tomb. Resurrecting a person who had just died was one thing…resurrecting an actively decaying body was unthinkable. 

And for this reason, many of those who witnessed the startling event believed in Jesus.

However, disturbingly, John tells us that some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Whether the intention was good or bad, we are not told, but this report sparked off a series of events that led to the murder of Jesus. 

Now, as I said before, the raising of the decomposing corpse of Lazarus was an indisputable sign pointing to the nature of Jesus…no one had ever raised a rotting corpse before, so the miracle was undeniable. However, remember what Abraham said to the rich man in Sheol? “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”. As with Lazarus so also with Jesus…they would not believe…

But what I’d like for us to consider today is the reason why they would not believe. 

So, let’s start with what the Sanhedrin had to say: “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” The fear expressed here is that they will either lose their position as rulers or lose the Temple itself or lose both as well as the nation as a whole. But why? What was the basis for this fear? 

Well, the backstory here is long and complicated, so I will try my best to keep it simple and to the point. This fear really began with the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians. So many Judeans had believed that their God would not allow his Temple to be destroyed even though the prophets had warned them that because of their life choices and lifestyles, God had abandoned them as well as their city and their temple. They had abandoned God by not obeying his Word and therefore God had abandoned them. Now, for reasons we can’t go into now, they had erroneously believed that the destruction of the Temple meant their God had been defeated by the gods of the invaders. 

Imagine their surprise when the prophet Ezekiel described to them what must be one of the most bizarre visions of all time. In his vision, Ezekiel saw God coming to his people in their place of exile, outside the Promised Land, on a mobile throne. Remember the wheels, the eyes, the angels etc? But while the vision might have been obscure and weird, the lesson was clear. God was enthroned above and over the universe and the God of the universe does not live in buildings made by humans. He is not like the false gods of the unbelievers. So, the destruction of the Temple was a sign of judgement on the people, not of the defeat of God. To the contrary. The destruction of the Temple meant that God was very much in control and would not be toyed with even by his own people. 

However, when the exiles were allowed to return under the Persians, they were encouraged to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Why? Well, because the City and the Temple were the unifying objects of the Jews. That’s what the major struggle between Sanballat on the one hand and Nehemiah and company on the other hand was all about. The Samarians, if you recall, had built a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim based on their understanding of the instructions in the Torah because they did not accept the writings and the prophets as Scripture and, consequently, they did not accept the Davidic dynasty nor the primacy of Jerusalem and its Temple. 

Remember, before the exile, Judah was a monarchy under the Davidic kings, a dynasty with a claim to divine investiture, an investiture spelt out in the writings and the prophets, but not the Torah. And their reign was inextricably linked with Jerusalem, because it was the City of David, and also with the Temple which was built by his son Solomon. 

So, any shift concerning the placement of the Temple was a shift in the locus of power and therefore a threat to Jewish identity. Jerusalem and the Temple were central to everything Jewish. So, it was imperative and inevitable that the Temple be rebuilt in Jerusalem. What was not rebuilt, however, was the Davidic monarchy. Various governors serving under the Persians and the Greeks ruled in their stead. The code of law declared by Ezra in the early 4th century BC served as the legal ideal of a theocratic state, but one ruled by priests rather than by kings.

Now, jumping ahead several years to the Greek period, the Greeks allowed the Jews to manage their own affairs, without much interference by the government, but leadership was given to the High Priest, not a king. Sometime in the first century BC, an historian by the name of Diodorus Siculus said that because of the Greeks, the Jews never had a king because authority over the people was regularly vested in whichever priest was regarded as superior to his colleagues in wisdom and virtue. 

This form of government continued after the Maccabean revolt, and it was sealed by the eventual establishment of the Hasmonean Priest-Kings. The descendants of David all but faded into obscurity. 

So, the emerging Jewish religion now had a sacred centre in Jerusalem that became the focus of regular pilgrimages and the beneficiary of generous gifts and taxes due to the sanctuary and its officials. That was a dramatic shift for people who thought that Judaism needed to be a Davidic kingdom. Many still believed the prophetic promises that God had made to his people that Israel was to be a kingdom ruled by Davidic kings sanctioned by God himself. However, at some point in time, many of the descendants of David moved to Alexandria in Egypt and stayed there. Those remaining in Judea and Galilee became labourers and tradesmen. 

All of this further empowered the priests as they moved from being cultic officials to being wealthy politicians. They became the political leaders of Judaism, establishing themselves as a kingdom of priests, a term taken straight out of the book of Exodus, and they never relinquished that power from then on. Rather, they depicted themselves as the realization of God's purpose for Israel. But you may well ask, what about God's other prophetic promises regarding a future Davidic king? Well, that created national tension because some folks steadfastly believed that the Davidic Covenant still stood.

But then to complicate matters even further, when Pompey finally conquered Jerusalem, after years of friendly cooperation between the Jews and Rome, a puppet king by the name of Herod was installed to rule over the Jews. Now, Herod's ancestors were Edomites who had converted to Judaism, and his mother was Jewish, but although he had been raised as a Jew, he nevertheless was not widely accepted by the general population and so he married a Hasmonean princess to legitimize his claim to the throne. 

But as Rome transitioned from a Republic to what eventually became an Empire, they soon became overlords and oppressors controlling the cooperative leaders of the Jews (the Herodians and the Sadducees especially) and destroying any form of opposition like the zealots and especially self-proclaimed messiahs. This created an atmosphere ripe for messianic fever. But what was this messiah going to be? A warrior liberator like Joshua? A priest-king like the Hasmonaeans? Or would he be a Davidic descendant? And what would that mean for those currently in positions of power?

So, you can imagine why things were a little tense in Jerusalem when a descendant of David was becoming more and more popular gaining an ever-expanding following. If there was an uprising among the people that would challenge Rome, the current leadership would be in deep trouble regardless of who won the day in the end. 

However, we must remember that we are dealing with men who were steeped in the teachings of Scripture, so one would have expected their primary concern to be spiritual, but whenever the lines between political and religious entities are blurred the outcome is usually some form of compromise or outright rejection of biblical truth. So it is important to realise that the major concern of the Sanhedrin was about power and position and posterity, not truth. 

Instead of acknowledging the signs for what they were and the Man for who he was, they feared that politically things could get out of hand. The High Priest at the time, Joseph ben Caiaphas (who held office from AD 18-36), had been appointed in AD 18 by the Roman prefect Valerius Gratus (who preceded Pontius Pilate) after his father-in-law, Annas had been deposed. So, the threat of deposition or removal from office hung over the heads of anyone whose action displeased Rome. 

Consequently, their fear, then, was for their positions of power, the Temple that unified and controlled the people and served as a lucrative source of income, and the nation should they dare to rebel. Obviously, the zealous Maccabean blood had run cold by this time. The sad irony here is that the very thing they feared and sought to protect at all costs, became reality in AD 70 when Rome finally squelched the Jewish rebellion and razed Jerusalem to the ground. 

Be that as it may, the Sanhedrin rallied together, and expressed their anxious thoughts one to another, hoping that someone would come up with a viable solution to their dilemma. It is instructive to note that there is no mention of divine consultation. No prayers, no Urim and Thummin, no lot, no ephod, no prophet…nothing. But their carnality did not stop God.

When Caiaphas unveiled his diabolical plan to remove their problem, John says that he inadvertently uttered a prophetic word from God. Like Balaam, he prophesied unconsciously. What he meant was that if they would sacrifice one man, they would demonstrate their zeal for the supremacy of Rome. Remember their statement at the trial before Pilate. When the pagan governor said to them “Here is your King!” they shouted back, “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!” Stunned, Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your King?” And what was the reply of the chief priests? “We have no king but Caesar!”

But Caiaphas’ recommendation was in direct violation of Exodus 23:7 where God warned, “Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.” Likewise Proverbs 17:17 bluntly states, “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them are an abomination to the Lord.” So how did they get around this? Well, as you can imagine, there is quite a bit of debate about this, but some scholars believe that Caiaphas was citing a principle derived from the story found in our Old Testament lesson for today, about sacrificing one man (Sheba) to save the inhabitants of the city. The application of this principle in the context of saving a group of people, was that an individual might be sacrificed to save the whole. (The Talmudic concept of Yehareg ve’al ya’avor)

So, in the eyes of Caiaphas, Jesus was no less a worthless fellow than Sheba as his actions threatened them, the City, the Temple, and, indeed, in their opinion, the whole nation. But we must remember that they had been wanting to get rid of Jesus for a long time now, and what they had desired was now determined in council.

So, Jesus once more withdrew from the area to a town called Ephraim which, interestingly means “to be fruitful”. As we know, the death and resurrection of Jesus would be the first fruits of a global spiritual people of God. And so once more we see that even the evil decisions and deeds of wicked people are used by God to bring about his sovereign purposes. As the Early Church noted in their prayers in Acts 4, the actions of Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Chief Priests, and others all worked together in the crucifixion of Jesus to achieve the predetermined will of God. 

Of course, this is nothing new…from Joseph’s brothers to Pharoah, from Nebuchadnezzar to Cyrus, from Caiaphas to Judas…God controls and overrides evil. The earth is the Lord’s, the Psalmist reminds us, and the fulness thereof…the world and those who dwell in it. The sovereignty of God is completely universal.

As such, our God can guarantee that all things work together for the good of those who love him. He instructs the nations. He rules over both the deceiver and the deceived. He establishes rulers and removes them from office as he wills. Indeed, as Proverbs 16:33 tells us, our God controls even the most arbitrary of actions such as the rolling of dice. “The lot is cast into the lap,” Solomon wrote, “but it’s every decision is from the Lord.” 

That is why we can trust God, even in the face of overwhelming difficulty. We may not know how God will use all things for our benefit, but that is what faith is all about. If God could use the evil decisions of the Sanhedrin to bring about such a great salvation as is ours, then we can be assured that he will lead and guide us according to what he knows is best.

It is interesting to note at this point, that we no longer find any mention in John’s Gospel of more Jews believing in Jesus. It seems as if Jesus withdrew from public ministry to spend more time with his disciples, to go deeper with them, as it were, to prepare them for what was to come. The lesson for us as we reflect on this is that our God is extremely gracious in preparing us for future events and through His Word, he helps us to understand his ways regardless of circumstances. 

Yes, it is sad that there are such things as unteachable people…people who will not acknowledge the truth even though it is presented as an irrefutable fact…such as the resurrection of a decomposing body. 

In his book, City of God, (Book 2, Chapter 1) written between AD 413 and 426, Augustine said: “If people were humble enough to accept the clear evidence of truth without resisting it…those who express sound ideas would not need lengthy explanations to debunk baseless speculations. However, the prevailing and harmful mental weakness today hinders this, leading people to cling to unreasonable beliefs even after the truth is plainly demonstrated. This might be due to profound blindness or stubborn obstinacy, necessitating more elaborate discussions on already clear points, aiming to make the truths palatable even to those who choose to close their eyes. Yet, if we constantly respond to those who resist and speak against us, especially those who either can't grasp our arguments or stubbornly contradict, our discussions would become endless, fruitless, and burdensome.” 

Sadly, it seems, not much has changed. However, we can rejoice knowing that God has a purpose in everything and with everyone he sends our way. Unlike the worldly counsel of humanity, we have a Word that has been challenged for centuries and yet has remained true. So, let us not be disheartened by adversity. We know the one who sits in heaven. 

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl